Commonly, many professionals or technicians employ article holders to facilitate their job duties, for example, militant personnel or police officials need article holders to carry varying weapons, ammos, holsters, communicating means, pouches, water bottles, etc., correspondents and photographers need article holders to carry camera cases, optical peripherals, and related equipments, and maintenance workers need article holders to carry utility apparatus and so on.
An easy way to attach such article holders to the supports is to permanently sewing the article holders onto the support, for example sewing a pouch onto a vest. However, the article holders sewn on the support could not be repositioned or removed from the supports. Apparently, this kind of permanently attaching method is not welcomed by those personnel, such commando soldiers who eagerly need a versatile load-bearing vest for carrying different apparatuses. Instead, a releasable article holder enables the soldier to design his own vest or supporting pad, to change items from time to time under different circumstances.
As a result, the article holders are frequently fastened to a support such as a user's modular load-bearing vest, supporting pad, or a utility strap provided on a back pack, in a releasable way. There are a variety of methods existed for detachably attaching article holders to the supports. The most common method is to use fastening means directly attaching the article holders to the supports. Such fastening means include hook and loop fasteners, Velcro fasteners, snap fasteners, buckle fasteners, and so on.
However, all above mentioned fastening means had been proved inefficient, unrealistic, expensive or unreliable in practical applications. And more importantly, these fastening means are bulky, uncomfortable and user unfriendly. First of all, these fasteners are made of metal or plastic materials with certain extents of rigidity. So that such metal and plastic fastener would more or less rely on mechanisms to be functioned or purposed, and unquestionably, cause discomfort and uneasiness to the user when positioned close the body.
For instance, the buckle fasteners are not easy to be fastened when the article holder, such as a pouch is heavily stuffed or plumped. And more importantly, such fasteners need releasing mechanism to facilitate the disengagement. In a long run, such releasing mechanisms will more or less be degraded thus resulting malfunctions, or unwanted disengagements. Even though the Velcro fasteners are not relied on the metal or plastic mechanism, but its noise and unreliability are unacceptable to most users.
So, a new type of light weight, low bulky, user-friendly, reliable strap fastening means had been introduced into market to replace traditional fasteners for detachably attaching the article holders to the vests or supporting pads. This kind of user friendly strap attaching fasteners occupies less space and is relative overlapped flatly with respect to the user.
Some strap fasteners are made of fabric sewn to the back of the support to form fabric loops provided on the back of the supports through which a belt or a strap is engaged with such fabric loops for suspendedly attaching an article holder to the supporting pad.
Other strap fastening means comprise at least a mounting panel provided on a first object, such as load-bearing vest or a supporting pad, with a plurality of strip webbings evenly spaced and sewn across the surface of the mounting panel. So that there is a plurality of spacing between strip webbings with a predetermined width formed on the mounting panel. On the other hand, there is a plurality of strip fabrics sewn on the second object, such as an object holder. The spacing width between strips webbings on the mounting panel are sufficient to allow a plurality of the strip fabrics on the second object to fit there between.
In the meanwhile, the strip webbings are further attached on the mounting panel by perpendicular stitching such as to create longitudinal channels therein which are utilized for the insertion of a strap therein, the strap has an affixing end being attached at one end to the second object, and a free end which is adapted to be passing through the webbings and fabrics respectively defined on the mounting panel and the second object in an alternating manner so as to detachably attach the second object to the mounting panel of the first object.
In short, the above mentioned strap attaching system utilize a flexible strap for detachably coupling two objects in an attaching manner by interweaving such flexible strap between two objects. So that two separated objects could be attached together in a secure manner. In other words, the second object and first object will not disengage until user intentionally and physically separated the first and second object by pulling back the engaging strap.
However, one disadvantage of using flexible straps is that it is usually difficult to deal with the free end of the strap. For example, the free end may have to be tucked behind a belt or a pack strap that is tightly pressed against a body or backpack. However, when the second object is not positioned adjacent to a belt or a pack strap, the free end of the flexible strap has to be tucked back to the fabric loops, or otherwise, there would be a receiving cavity defined on the second object for tucking back the free end of the strap. However, since the two ends of such flexible strap are both positioned on the second object, the attaching efficacy of such strap fastening means could not be effectively guaranteed. For example, a bulged second object will loosen the fastening effect after a prolonged service.
In some embodiments, a fastening element, such snaps, buckles, hook-and-loop fasteners is formed on the free end of the flexible strap to detachably attach such flexible strap to the first object. This enables a user to push the free ends interweave between webbings and fabrics defined on the mounting panel of the first object and the second object.
However, there is a hardware associated with this attaching strap, such as a snap button, or a clip, being provided on the free end of the flexible strap. By reutilizing the clips and snaps, the life span of the strap attaching system are once again subject to the vulnerability of such fasteners, such as rust or damage, thereby becoming unserviceable when applied in the most extreme operating conditions.
What is more, to ensure the second object is permanently affixed to the first object so it cannot be lost or otherwise separated from the first object, the free end of the strap, having one end affixed to the second object, is preferably, affixed to the first object for providing a firmed attaching effect. Otherwise, the second object just looks like an object hanging on the first object rather than attaching on the first object.
So it is desirable to develop an interlock strap attaching system that not only has simple interweaving function and modular applications, but also provides an efficient and securable fastening arrangement to the free end of such strap.